New year.

I have come into December with bittersweet feelings, that for the most part have melted away. I can confidently say that my bout with depression is over. I am so intensely relieved and thank Heavenly Father EVERY time I pray that I can feel joy again. That I can be happy just "being" again. That I can just swell with love for my son like I did before. I know by the way it ended and how quickly my emotions changed that it was a not just something that happened, but a very precisely picked trial. It was planned out from the beginning down to the number of days it would last. I had tried so many things that just didn't help at all. Even the antidepressant I tried made me so sick I couldn't stand it. I was MEANT to feel every little tiny bit of hopelessness, depression, darkness, and misery I did. I got to the point that I was so entirely fatigued and beaten by it, that I just needed some reprieve. Some kind of release from the horror even if only for a few minutes. That is how it affected me so completely every moment. I just so desperately needed a break. I was losing my grip and fight so quickly I was willing to turn to meds to get my small release. Just anything to stop the pain and even of only marginally re cooperate. Then, I can remember that I just woke up one morning, and felt good. It really was over that quickly. As soon as I really did hit my breaking point, it was over. I had felt I'd reached it sooo long ago, but I really hadn't. How do you know how strong a tree limb is until you've broken it? It's been a couple of weeks now, and those torturous months I spent in despair, that seemed to simply never, end seem so small now. I still can feel the sharpness of my loss, but I don't feel so lost anymore. I came into December with inescapable pain, and I am approaching Christmas with so much less burden. It has been exactly one year now since we started trying to have a baby. Just a few weeks ago, I would have come upon this anniversary with such excruciating heartbreak. I would have cried from pain for hours. But, I'm not. I am so sad to know that I don't have my baby that should be a month old now, but I'm not broken from it like I was before. My trial is over, and I can only pray I passed the test. Sometimes I don't feel like it gave me any benefit at all. Don't trials make us better people? I didn't feel better, just broken. Even after the pain subsided. Then I got some revelation that I will never forget.

1. Back in our pre-mortal existence, we looked upon our Heavenly Father and Mother, and could see something different. And it was so desirable that we VOLUNTEERED to come to earth, endure pain, heartache, despair, darkness, and every horrible thing to obtain what they had. Of course we didn't completely understand what it was we were signing up for. How could we? We had never experienced anything before. But what they had must have been so beautiful, we would make that tremendously hard journey.

2. This life is the TEST not the REWARD. This life is designed to be hard. To tempt us, to hurt us, to tear us apart. It has to be hard to get the great reward. Even the most valuable rewards mean little if only little is needed to obtain them. Our reward is THE greatest reward. Nothing is more precious. So shouldn't it be the most difficult to achieve? Shouldn't it cost us the most?

3. The atonement is beyond my capacity to describe as precious. It was so perfectly designed with such perfect love. Christ paid the price for not only our darkest sins, but for our pain as well. All our pain we experience innocently at the hands of others, or because of nature, or because of health, was also endured by Christ. He knows how you feel. He does because he felt it, too. So he is the perfect comforter. Let him. Because he knows you and your pain.

4. Trials will come. And you should be grateful they are long and hard, and that Heavenly Father lets you struggle. We can only gain experience in opposites. We can only experience joy at the same degree as pain you experience. You can only feel the highest highs if you know the lowest lows. You must know the dark to know the light. So, while journeying through the valley of death, just remember that joy, just as exquisitely good as this is bad, will come. This hardship will allow you to see the beauty in your life with much deeper understanding. And you will cherish it all the more.

5. Keep an eternal perspective. We have heard it so many times: it will be a small moment. And it will! It will. You all know that because you can look back now and see the hard times in your lives, and they are small now. Keep your eye on your reward. Keep your eye on that characteristic that Heavenly Father and Mother had that we saw in the pre-existence. We trusted them to send us here. Don't lose that faith and trust now. Consider this. A bee stuck in a bus couldn't get out no matter how hard it tried. The bus driver opened a window and tried to usher it out. The bee wouldn't be guided. Trust in someone who has a greater perspective than you to guide you. It may not make sense to you, but it would if you had a different perspective. Keep your eternal perspective.

6. YOU are the one who decides what happens to you because of your trials. MAKE them mean something. Don't endure the trial just to be the same afterward. You paid for something. Don't let it slip away. Make the trial work for you. Use it!

Things I have learned:

1. I have never had the opportunity to become so close and dependent on my Father in Heaven and my Savior Jesus Christ.

2. I have learned how to thirst and hunger for the gospel. How precious and priceless the sacrament is, and how I simply need the rest I get when I am in the presence of the Spirit.

3. I have learned how to need to pray always.

4. I know the meaning of "I need thee every hour"

5. I can so clearly understand some truths about the atonement I didn't before.

6. Faith does not make a trial end. Faith is still going to church, still serving, and still having hope through it.

7. I can do hard things.

8. All things are possible with Christ. No matter what it is.

9. So very few of the things I "care" about day to day don't matter at all.

10. The greatest characters are the most scarred.

My Father in Heaven loves me enough to turn me into something of great beauty like pressure does to coal. So here I am at the 1 year mark with a whole new perspective. And I am making this trial mean something. It will not be just a hard time for me to forget. Rather, it will be a hard time that taught me some of the most sweet truths of my life. So, here I go with this new year.